Buchanan's Journal of Man, September 1887: Volume 1, Number 8
Philosophy
Buchanan's Journal of Man, September 1887: Volume 1, Number 8
Medicine -- Periodicals; Phrenology -- Periodicals; Science -- Periodicals
In consummating such tasks, I felt justified, in 1842, in adopting the
word Anthropology, as the representative of the new science, though at
that time it was so unfamiliar as to be misunderstood. This science,
as presented in my Outlines of Anthropology in 1854, embraced another
very important and entirely novel discovery--the psycho-physiological
relations of the surface of the body, the manner in which every
portion of the body responds to the brain and the soul, the final
solution of the great and hitherto impenetrable mystery of the triune
relations of soul, brain, and body. This discovery, constituting the
science of Sarcognomy, became the basis of a new medical philosophy,
explaining the influence of the body on the soul, in health, and
disease, and the reciprocal influence of the soul on the body.
This manifestly modified our views of therapeutics and revolutionized
electro-therapeutics by pointing out the exact physiological and
psychic effects of every portion of the surface of the body, when
subject to local treatment, and hence, originating new methods of
electric practice, in which many results were produced not heretofore
deemed possible. All this was fully presented in my work on
THERAPEUTIC SARCOGNOMY, published in 1885, which was speedily sold.
In contemplating these immense results of a successful investigation
of the functions of the brain, I can see no logical escape from the
conclusion that such a revelation of the functions of the brain is by
far the most important event that belongs to the history of vital
science--an event so romantically different from the common, slow
progress of science when cultivated by men of ability, that I do not
wonder at the incredulity which naturally opposes its recognition, and
seems to render the most unanimous and conclusive testimony from
honorable scientists apparently ineffective. The support of the
medical college in which I was Dean of the Faculty, the hearty
endorsement by the Faculty of Indiana State University, and by
numerous committees of investigation, seem to count as nothing with
the conservative portion of the medical profession, who have ever
understood how to ignore so simple and positive a demonstration as
that of Harvey, or so practical a demonstration as that of Hahnemann,
or so irresistible a mass of facts as those of modern psychic science.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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